image-i-nations trésor

24th Sunday of Year C – 2022

A gospel text – THE gospel text so well known! (Luke 15:11-32).
Too well known, perhaps… to the point that we fail to recognize the real identity of the people –
those presented in Jesus’ parable.

A son like… many other…
Cherished by a loving father…
Unaware of all that the father’s love does lavish on him…
Dreaming of other places where freedom should be found…
Clinging to the illusion that no bonds or boundaries is liberty…
Wanting to enjoy life in his own way…
Suddenly aware of all that has been lost…
Making the experience of need, real need…
Realizing that what he had was the answer to this need…

 

 

 

 

 

 

A son like many… of us…
We may try not to notice our situation as it is…
We may use different means to deceive ourselves…
We may say that all is well while knowing it is not…
We may cling to the illusion that being free is all that matters…
We may pretend that we do not need anybody…
We may protest any intervention of those near to us seeing it as interference…
We may claim that we do not need ‘a god’ and all that it means…
We may have gone far… far away indeed… far from our true selves…

Shall we, at long last, “come to our senses” as the young man in the parable did?
Shall we have the courage to “leave this place” of pseudo-freedom and start on the way to return ‘home’?
Shall we dare to acknowledge to ourselves, and to our Father, that we have not been what he and we want most?

Then, the festive spirit that will be ours can hardly be described – it needs to be experienced!

 

Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/24e-dimanche-de-lannee-c-2022/

 

Source: Images: freebibleimages.org

Feast of Christmas, Year B – 2020

Did you notice how, when surprised or caught unawares, some people will explain:
“My God!”
The words come not as a prayer but as a spontaneous exclamation.

And yet, it could be a prayer… and it could be more than a prayer –
it could be the sign that the words of Isaiah in the 1st reading of the Christmas night mass (Isaiah 9:1-6)
have been really understood.

Because this is the true meaning of CHRISTMAS:
“To us a child is born,
to us a son is given.”

If only, this time – this Christmas – we could discover, understand, and appropriate this reality.
Appropriate, yes, make it our own – God is OUR God, God is God-with-us – this is his name.

How is it that we have come to imagine a distant God, remote from our human experience?
How did we miss what he has been trying to make us understand for so long?
Why do we find it so hard to accept that his idea of what God should be is the right one?!

Why do we constantly go back to the gods of the past, the gods known before Jesus was born a small child –
Born from a human mother, a woman of our race – that he could in truth claim us as his own.

He has claimed us as his own so that we may claim him as ours – indeed OUR God.
A child born to us, a son given to us.
 
This is Christmas – “MY God!” how amazingly wonderful!

Note: Another reflection on a different theme is available in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/fete-de-noel-annee-b-2020/

 

Source: Image: Knowing Jesus